Disaffected Partisans: How Voters are Emphasizing Ideological Labels

• In Event: Ideology and Partisanship: Convergences and Divergences

Abstract

Traditional theories of American politics claim that ideological self-placement plays, at best, a secondary role in political behavior. I argue that this increasingly does not seem to be the case. Although voters are more reluctant to identify with a party, they are not becoming apolitical. I leverage over forty years of survey data to show that (1) a growing number of Americans identify as either liberal or conservative, while fewer identify as moderate or avoid ideological labels; (2) affective ideological polarization is increasing ; (3) ideological self-placement is becoming a better predictor of political attitudes; and (4) its predictive power over vote choice and turnout is also in an upward trajectory. I use panel data to show that ideological self-identification is stable overtime. Empirically, these results beg for a reassessment of our understanding of the relative importance of political identities. Normatively, they hint at a delegitimization of the party system, an essential feature of liberal democracies.

Author

• Lucas de Abreu maia, University of California, San Diego